DevelopingWhere is China’s missing photographer Lu Guang? Hong Kong press club calls for answers
- Foreign Correspondents’ Club is ‘deeply concerned’ over award-winning documentary photographer’s disappearance
- Last heard from on November 3 in troubled Xinjiang region
Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club has called on Chinese authorities to confirm the whereabouts of missing award-winning Chinese photojournalist Lu Guang, saying it is “deeply concerned” over his disappearance from China’s western Xinjiang region.
Lu, internationally acclaimed for his gripping photos of the dire consequences of environmental pollution, drug addiction and Aids in China, has been missing for weeks after visiting the troubled region to meet other photographers.
Xinjiang has been under a sweeping security clampdown in recent years, with up to one million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities detained in its extrajudicial internment camps, according to a United Nations panel estimate in August.
According to his wife, Xu Xiaoli, she lost touch with her husband on November 3 and later learned from authorities that he had been taken away by state security officers in the region. No other details were provided.
It is unclear why Lu, a member of the Han ethnic majority group, has been detained.
Chinese documentary photographer Lu Guang went missing in Xinjiang three weeks ago, family says
In a statement on Thursday, the FCC called on China to, “at the very least, confirm Mr Lu’s whereabouts, and ensure that he is safe, and, if he has not broken any laws, be allowed to leave China and return to his family in the United States as soon as possible”.